Forward Error Correction (FEC) is a coding technique typically used for correcting errors in data transmission over communication channels. Using FEC a sender provides redundant data in the stream of communicated data to enable the recipient to detect errors in the received data and/or recover a copy of the original data from the correctly received data without requiring a reverse communication from the recipient to the sender to request retransmission of missing data or received data that has error.
FEC adds redundant data by transforming the original information into channel-encoded outputs using an algorithm. The original information may or may not appear literally in the encoded output. Outputs that include the unmodified input are systematic, while outputs that do not include the unmodified input are non-systematic. A recipient decodes the non-systematic outputs to reassemble the original information from the received outputs. Rateless erasure codes can potentially generate a limitless sequence of encoding symbols from a given set of original symbols such that the original symbols can be recovered from a subset of the encoding symbols of size equal to or larger than the number of original symbols. The rateless FEC does not have a fixed code rate.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,413,494, entitled “FEC-based Reliable Transport Control Protocols for Multipath Streaming”, discloses the transmission of forward-error corrected data, from a server device to a client device, via a plurality of parallel network paths. The client device reports, to the server device, the losses of the data in the network paths for the retransmission of the data lost in the network paths.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,249,291, entitled “System and Method for Reliably Communicating the Content of a Live Data Stream”, discloses a method to transmit a live data stream to a recipient using multiple channels, where a forward error correction algorithm is applied to generate FEC-encoded blocks.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,236,885, entitled “Systematic Encoding and Decoding of Chain Reaction Codes”, discloses that in certain applications it may be preferable to transmit the source symbols first, and then to continue transmission by sending output symbols. Such a coding system was referred to as a systematic coding system.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,015,564, entitled “Content Delivery System with Allocation of Source Data and Repair Data among HTTP Servers”, discloses a source server storing content in a source form, a broadcast sever generating and storing repair symbols, and repair servers requesting broadcast of repair data when byte-range requests from multiple receivers overlap.
U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2010/0094955, entitled “Methods and Systems for using a Distributed Storage to its Maximum Bandwidth”, discloses a method to generate multiple coded fractional copies of a data segment, which are stored in multiple storage devices. A subset of the coded copies will be fully downloaded for data recovery, and in case of recovery failure, more coded copies will be fully downloaded.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,078,746, entitled “Distribution Method, Preferably Applied in a Streaming System”, discloses a method to generate, at peer receivers of a network, FEC-coded feed packets of the portion of the broadcast data they have received, so that all peer receivers can download sufficient feed packets from any other peer receivers to recover the entire broadcast data.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,996,946, entitled “Application of Fountain Forward Error Correction Codes in Multi-link Multi-path Mobile Networks”, discloses a method to generate different on-the-fly FEC encoded packets of a data segment and send these packets through different unreliable paths that are coupled with a receiver until the receiver has acknowledged or the time is out.
U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2014/0269289, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Improving Communication Performance through Network Coding”, discloses a method to generate different on-the-fly network coding encoded packets of a data segment and send these packets through different unreliable paths that are coupled with a receiver. The receiver may send intermediate feedback to the transmitter to manage retransmissions. In case the data segment cannot be fully recovered, partial recovery will be attempted.
The entire disclosures of the above identified patents are hereby incorporated herein by reference.